Katy midwife rides an inflatable white swan to help birth a baby

Cathy Allen Rude, a Katy-area midwife, showed that ingenuity and adaptability are hallmarks of midwifery when she rode an inflatable white swan out of her flooded neighborhood Monday afternoon to help a patient in labor during intense area flooding. less

Cathy Allen Rude, a Katy-area midwife, showed that ingenuity and adaptability are hallmarks of midwifery when she rode an inflatable white swan out of her flooded neighborhood Monday afternoon to help a ... more

Photo: Katy Birth Center / Cathy Allen Rude

Photo: Katy Birth Center / Cathy Allen Rude

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Cathy Allen Rude, a Katy-area midwife, showed that ingenuity and adaptability are hallmarks of midwifery when she rode an inflatable white swan out of her flooded neighborhood Monday afternoon to help a patient in labor during intense area flooding. less

Cathy Allen Rude, a Katy-area midwife, showed that ingenuity and adaptability are hallmarks of midwifery when she rode an inflatable white swan out of her flooded neighborhood Monday afternoon to help a ... more

Photo: Katy Birth Center / Cathy Allen Rude

Katy midwife rides an inflatable white swan to help birth a baby

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Midwifery is a specialized practice, involving years of training, a tender bedside manner and plenty of patience to help women birth children in the privacy of their own homes.

This week, a Katy-area midwife showed that ingenuity and adaptability are also hallmarks of midwifery when she had to ride an inflatable white swan out of her flooded neighborhood to keep a Monday afternoon appointment with a patient in labor in the midst of intense area flooding.

Cathy Allen Rude, 63, has been a midwife for decades. She’s one of four staff midwives with the Katy Birth Center, which she owns.

According to a post on her Facebook page, she was delivered to a waiting pickup truck via a neighbor’s inflatable swan so she could meet the overdue, expectant mother at the Katy Birth Center after Rude’s flooded neighborhood streets became impassable by car.

She’s gotten quite a kick out of performing a "water birth during a flood."

Rude was back to work on Tuesday and Wednesday, helping families welcome newborns into the world. She was unable to be reached for comment but a staffer at the birth center said floodwaters in her neighborhood had gone down enough for her to ditch the swan for her own car.